


I'd be home with you

by zephalien



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insomnia, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:41:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22995607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephalien/pseuds/zephalien
Summary: title from In a week by hozier bc im gay and i was listening to hozier while i finish editing this.soft two parter about Paul's experience of having insomnia while dating the lovely Alec Hardy. Enjoy my self indulgence.
Relationships: Paul Coates/Alec Hardy
Kudos: 49





	1. I have never known peace

They had been dating for a while when Hardy, cheeks flushed from the heated kiss he had been engaged in, looked Paul in the eyes and blurted that Paul should stay the night. His mind immediately started spinning with anxiety, but the man's mouth had simply turned up in a loose and lazy smile as he nodded.

Paul's soft eyes fixed on him like he was the whole point of everything. Hardy's chest felt open, his emotions exposed. 

He kissed Paul again and again.

They didn't do much whenever Paul slept over, though sleeping in the same bed as someone else was a novelty. He hadn't ever had a real long term boyfriend. Of course, He and Tess had been married for ages, but it seemed like they rarely slept at the same time.  
In retrospect, he thinks she must've just been "sleeping" somewhere else.

He hadn't forgotten Paul was an insomniac. It was more he expected it to not be so severe. Maybe? Or maybe he assumed Paul would have told him when it was a problem? He isn't sure which. He definitely hadn't thought about it enough.

What Paul had been doing, it turns out, was quietly getting out of bed, silently making tea, and then sitting in Hardy's living room alone trying not to wake him.

A wave a guilt rolled through Hardy instantly upon discovering him that first time.  
"What do you do when I'm laying on your arm or something?" Hardy had asked, not sure he wanted to know. It was simply the first thought sensical enough to say aloud.  
Paul shrugged. He looked completely wrecked.  
"Just lay there, I guess."  
Hardy felt the nonsensical urge to yell at Paul.  
"Why??" Hardy asked instead.  
Paul gave a soft shy smile along with averted eyes. "I don't like to disturb you."

The useless frustration inside Hardy broke into sadness and he dropped to the couch beside his silly wonderful boyfriend.  
Hardy took his hand carefully and looked at him planning his words.  
"You aren't a disturbance. I want to help."

He felt presumptuous saying it. He knew he changed the meaning a bit in his response, but he thought he heard something off about the response Paul had given. Paul had never let on as to why he doesn't sleep, just that he doesn't. It was the expression on his face and the silent way he was sat there that told Hardy more than either had expected. Hardy felt like he is intruding on something very intimate all of a sudden.

Paul looked up at Hardy helplessly. In response, Hardy put on the stubborn face he usually saves for work. Paul just rolled his eyes lips tugging into a tired small grin.

Paul allowed himself to be led back to bed where Hardy spoke to him sleepily about anything he could think to say.  
He mainly told Paul stories about Daisy, considering she's the happiest source of memories Hardy has. 

Paul, blessedly, nodded off before Hardy that first time.  
Finally, Hardy allowed himself to drop his head into Paul's shoulder and pass out. 

Paul was, of course, full of guilt in the morning, but in the morning things are soft lit and easier. Hardy could soothe his worried look by pulling him close and planting a kiss on his forehead and telling him that it's ok. It's good. He's happy with him.  
Paul had searched Hardy's eyes for the lie, but failing to find one, he unwillingly relented.

The next time Paul wakes after a few hours of fitful rest, he doesn't leave the bed immediately. He isn't holding his limbs tightly like he does when he wakes with Hardy's entangled in his. In those moments, he lays still in fearful paralysis sure that a single movement would wake him. He tries to breathe. As always, he worries about disturbing Hardy's sleep. He can't stand the idea of transferring his own insomnia onto someone else by nature of his own issues. He has inside him a mixture of jealousy and deference for people who can manage to achieve rest. He doesn't want to take that away from anyone, especially with how he suffers. It isn't fair, especially to a man like Alec Hardy who has so deeply earned the rest he gets. 

There is another fear though deep inside him. A fear of something else. Something worse. He knows this fear isn't justified. He is sure of this, especially now. So, this time he just waits for a moment trying to catch his breath. It's still coming quick though. Paul looks at Hardy's sleeping form and he longs for what he has been offered. He aches to just reach for Hardy and be comforted. 

His chest flutters and won't settle. He looks at Alec's face, slack and innocent, for a long moment pulled apart in two directions.

In the end, he follows the path that's familiar. He gets up silently, makes tea silently, and sits on Hardy's couch silently. He also cries silently, but that's a thing he hasn't ever told anyone, especially Hardy. 

Hardy is aware now, if only vaguely, of how often he is up at night. Paul has noticed an abundance of books starting to appear in the living room. They must be from a storage unit or somewhere, because they don't look new and Hardy's name is inscribed in some of them. It's mostly mystery novels and some nonfiction. Paul reads a bit of them, but he has trouble focusing on nights like this so he mostly just sits. He used to walk around the town, but the sound of a door was much too loud with a sleeping Hardy in the other room. He had a feeling Hardy wouldn't mind it so much, but any noise above the quietest creaks make Paul's heart race. The body remembers even if the mind refuses, he has found.

It's after a night where they argued that Paul awakes, eyes opening from dreamless sleep, body trembling. His eyes go to Hardy's sleeping face immediately. It was barely an argument. Paul was frustrated with Hardy for prattling on about the movie they watched and how much he hated it. Hardy was frustrated with Paul for insisting he didn't hate it even though he clearly did. The fight was almost silly in essence and ended with Hardy huffing out a breath and saying he was sorry for being a grump and Paul had laughed and kissed him.  
That was hours ago now though and during the day.  
Night was different. It was always different. 

Paul was well known to the duality of night time. It was quiet and serene and softened in some ways. Less noise, less attention. It also opens you up. It makes you swirl around inside yourself looping through old memories and nonsense useless fear. 

Before his brain catches up to him, Paul presses a sweating shaky hand to Hardy shoulder and squeezes gently. He isn't even sure this will wake him. He hopes, wretchedly, that it will. He feels unable to move more than just this gentle squeeze, as if he was just trying to tug Hardy gently out of sleep to him.  
"Alec," Paul whispers, a mere broken sound. He notes distantly how pathetic he sounds.

For a long moment, Hardy doesn't stir and Paul feels a sickness deep in his belly as he tries to force himself to stop. To get up. To go make tea. To calm the fuck down. 

Stop trying to make people feel bad for you. He tells himself in a voice that echoes from the past. You aren't his problem.

After staring for a long moment boiling with despair and need, he lets go of Hardy's shoulder and moves slightly intending to stand when, as if by a miracle, Hardy's eyes open and he stirs a little.  
The dopey sleepy smile that splits Hardy's face when he sees Paul's broken tearful face chases away the deeper of Paul's worries, even if it didn't abate the emotions fully.

"Hello, darling." Hardy says drowsily with that beautiful smile. His hands runs up and down Paul's arms comfortingly and Paul's feels himself relax slightly.

"Hi. I'm sorry I woke you." He says in contrition.  
He tries to pretend his eyes aren't red ringed, that he hadn't been panicking a moment ago, that this was a calm moment, a minor inconvenience.

"I'm glad you woke me." Hardy croaks, his voice gruff from sleep.

He pulls Paul closer into his chest, wrapping his arms around him. He smooths one hand over Paul's hair. The frenetic energy of Paul's body seems to ebb away slowly as Hardy strokes his hair.

Hardy clears his throat, the sound loud against Paul's face, and when he speaks it rumbles in his chest comfortingly. "Do you want to talk to me about it?"  
His tone betrays his own anxiety and Paul shakes his head against him.

"Aye," Hardy sounds like he is going to fall asleep again any second. "Then tell me about something else."

Paul peeks up at his face, etched with exhaustion. "Like what?"

"Tell me a story." Hardy requests, struggling to keep his eyes open.

Paul searches his brain for something to say for a while and keeps his head tucked into Hardy's chest when he finally speaks. It's a story about his first day of seminary school. He talks for a long time meandering through different half remembered stories until he feels Hardy's breathe even out again in his chest. This time he doesn't feel that spike of terror at being awake and alone in the middle of the night. He just feels loved.


	2. Our heartbeats becoming slow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul is having a bad time with his insomnia when Alec wakes up from a nightmare.

Paul is sitting in bed next to Hardy. 

He has tears streaming down his face and, despite his best efforts, quiet gasps escape his mouth. Hardy's warm sleeping body next to him is grounding for the moment. It was enough that he was holding it together somewhat or, at the very least, it was why he was even trying. 

He looks over at the man's sleeping body and his tight worried expression even in repose. He feels a warmth pool in his belly, alongside a much stronger bolt of guilt. His hands twitch with the urge to smooth out his wrinkled brow, but he stops himself. No need to wake Hardy yet again. It didn't seem fair to Hardy that he was awake feeling like shit every night no matter how hard either of them tried. He wishes with a tired futility that he could manage to lay down. He wishes to rest for just one night next to the man who had become such a grounding and stabilizing presence to him.

He knew he could ( _should_ ) wake Hardy, but he was trying to convince himself that it was fine for now. No need to wake him yet again. He woke him too often as it was. Hardy was a fitful sleeper already. He hated to cause him any more trouble than he already had.

In a momentary fit of selfishness, he wishes Hardy's sleeping was as awful as his was, but shakes away the thought as soon as it comes into his head. A new flush of guilt twists in his middle like a vice and his throat tightens with the effort it takes to hold in the worst of the sobbing. No need to wake him. Not again.  
It would be worse if Hardy felt the same, he knew, not better. 

Almost in answer to his self indulgent thought, Hardy's breathing becomes laboured in his sleep and his body begins to writhe and twist. His eyebrows draw together as he starts to thrash rapidly, soft pitiful noises coming along with quick breaths. Paul has almost no time to react before Hardy sat up suddenly, shockingly awake in the formerly quiet room. The bubble of tense silence Paul was trapped under a moment before burst. Alec's ragged gasps fill the room for a long moment as Paul looks on in surprise. Finally, he wipes his eyes hastily and reaches to touch Hardy before thinking better of it. 

"Alec?" He says cautiously.

Hardy whips around wildly. His eyes focusing in on Paul with the intensity of someone who was just finding his way back into reality.   
"Paul." He speaks too loudly and too desperately. His hands reach, almost violently, out for his boyfriend. He normally would deny himself comfort but the fearful expression on his face tells Paul that he isn't acting on anything but pure adrenaline and a deep instinctual need to seek comfort. Paul receives Hardy's hands and pulls him into a tight crushing hug, ignoring the awkward position, privately glad for the chance to hide his own face. 

Hardy's body was still for a second then he was sobbing. A momentary calm before the storm, his body wracked with whatever horrors were left over from his dream. Paul hadn't ever seen Hardy have a nightmare before, but he knew vaguely that he had them. He smooths a hand over Hardy's back where the soft cotton of Hardy's sleep shirt is stuck to his sweaty form. Paul wonders if he should get Hardy some water, but that would require moving. He doesn't dare release Hardy as the man cries pitifully in his arms. Paul looks down at him with guilt and fondness blossoming in his chest. A war of conflicted feelings rages inside him. His own aching sadness is pushed aside by his worry over Alec and his fear of what horrors lay inside the man's head. Briefly, he feels that he isn't good enough for this. How can he comfort someone else when his own body is so unfamiliar to peace and rest as well?

He wishes he knew more about Hardy's past, but he only knew what he had heard from others. The only real thing Hardy had ever told him about his background was that he has a daughter and that he was married once and now he isn't. Paul had refrained from asking many questions after that. He had a feeling it wasn't anything to do with him that Hardy resisted talking about his past. Now, seeing the fear in his eyes, it seemed clearer that ever that the reason Hardy hadn't spoken much about it was due, not to a lack of trust in Paul, but because his past continued to haunt him, even now. 

Paul holds him for a long time until the almost painful grip Hardy has on him becomes slack and the hyperventilating wheezing starts to ease finally. He takes in a few more unsteady disjointed breaths. Paul can hear him repeating to himself in a weak practiced way the words, _in and out, in and out_. Paul feels himself doing the breathing along with Hardy and his own tears start to clear as he holds onto the shaking man. 

He isn't prepared when Hardy yanks himself upright out of his grasp in a swift singular movement. He isn't prepared for the way Hardy meets his eyes, vision crystal clear after waking even in darkness, and sees the broken expression Paul holds on his own face. He is definitely not prepared for the way Hardy's face crumples when he's processed Paul's expression, swollen eyes and lips, his flushed cheeks. 

"I'm sorry, Paul." Hardy gasps out, horrified and frantic. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay." Paul rushes to comfort him as a fresh wave of sobs batters against his boyfriend's chest. "Please. It's nothing. Please."

"It's my fault." Hardy tells him, hands gripping Paul's arms in a way that approaches uncomfortable. 

"It wasn't. I was like this when you got here." Paul tells him. He wants it to be a joke, but his mouth won't even twist upward in a mockery of a smile. The tragic stricken expression sticking stubbornly to his face.

Hardy looks from him and his eyes dart around the room as if trying to solidify the reality of his surroundings. Then he turns back to Paul, expression mournful, "I made you cry."

Paul tips his head forward to press his forehead against Hardy's. It's the only thing he can move while still allowing Hardy to hold tight to his biceps in that desperate too tight way. "You didn't cause this. You didn't do anything wrong."

He is nearly cross eyed making eye contact with Hardy, but not for long, because Hardy's eyes close against his fresh tear and he takes in a deep shaken breath. Paul takes the moment while Hardy tries to calm down to move his arms a little. Hardy's hands instantly loosen at the slightest pressure. Paul brings his hands slowly to cup Hardy's face in his hands. He smooths his thumbs under Hardy's eyes, wiping away some of the tears from his pale cheeks. 

"I didn't want to hurt anyone." Hardy whispers. He seems like he is trying to convince someone, maybe Paul, but probably himself. 

"You didn't." Paul tells him, thumbs wiping away more tears and pulls away to kiss salty tear streaked cheek. Hardy's skin is cold and damp where Paul's lips meet his cheek. 

Hardy opens his dark eyes, practically black in the darkened room, and Paul wants to either shrink away or drown in the intense gaze he finds himself fixed with. He kisses his other cheek. Hardy's breath catches and the man tips his head up to catch Paul's lips with his own. Paul's mouth is warm against Hardy's cold and clammy lips. Hardy kisses him like he is trying to come up for air, like he's been underwater and Paul is delivering a life giving breath. 

When they break apart, Paul is panting, but he feels like he may cry. Hardy's kiss was deep and long and intimate in a way that makes his heart ache in his chest. "I love you, Alec. I love you. I'm here."

"Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I love you." Hardy tells him, still catching his breath, half crazed from the nightmare and the heat of the embrace. 

Paul pulls him into another hug, this one gentler in nature than the first. "I've got you."

"Okay. Thank you. I love you." Hardy repeats, like a mantra. He digs his nose into the hard bones of Paul's collar. 

"We're going to be okay." Paul tells him, as much for himself as for the man in his arms.

"I know." Hardy says with a sincerity that makes the aching in Paul's chest throb and burst open with the intensity of it. "I love you. 


End file.
